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Welcome to the V. Press bookshop
Here you can find details of our titles in order of publication/stock arrival from printers, starting with the most recent.To find pamphlets or books by a particular poet, please visit our Writers/Illustrators page, where authors are listed alphabetically according to their surname.Further information about selected individual titles may also be found on the Chez Nous page.We have eclectic tastes, with poetry and flash fiction titles ranging across accessible, narrative, lyrical, experimental, process-inspired...etc. Hopefully, these pages will give you enough information for you to find the right titles for your reading tastes. But if not, please do email us at vpresspoetryAThotmailDOTcom with any questions/for personal recommendations.MAKING WAVES

Making Waves Albert Einstein: Science & Life portrays the life and times of a genius with poems that are very passionate and very human.

“Don't be put off by the Physics! This poetic study of Einstein's life and work is deeply informed but also witty, varied and often moving. ‘Don't feel sorry for me. / There must be certainty in the world’ Einstein says here, but as he faces the travails of certainty Martin Zarrop ensures that we do.” Jeffrey Wainwright

“Martin Zarrop's latest pamphlet Making Waves takes a look at the life and times of Albert Einstein and the lives of those he has influenced and touches. The poems here skilfully encapsulate different aspects of Einstein's life, from his work and theories and their aftermath to touching poems about his private life, the woman he married and the child he lost. The writing finds Zarrop on top form, witty and wry, and with a keen eye for details, able to paint an overall picture while still having time to see ‘somewhere between here / and the nearest star: / a single hair - / now found’. Enjoy this wonderful collection of poems.” David Tait

PRE-ORDER Making Waves Albert Einstein: Science & Life now using the paypal link below. [Making Waves is published in Jan 2019. Pre-orders are sent out in the week of publication.]

Making Waves (including P&P)

THE BOY WHO COULDN'T SAY HIS NAME

“John Lawrence’s The boy who couldn’t say his name is a joy to read, a book of poems packed with heart, humour and a unique slant on everyday life. The collection is underpinned but not dominated by the story behind the title, the painful experiences he endured as a child, and his wicked imagination shines through.”Heather Wastie

“These poems manage the almost impossible feat of being understated yet vivid. In this collection John Lawrence takes us through a landscape of narratives where we can feel life: its little triumphs, its wounds, its quirkiness, its sadness, and its joy. He is also a skilful humourist and it’s a delight to find several poems which showcase his impressive comedic talents. It is a perfect irony that a boy who grew up unable to say his name became a poet with such a compelling and wonderful voice.” Fergus McGonigal

The boy who couldn’t say his name is very empathetic and very entertaining.

PRE-ORDER a copy of The boy who couldn't say his name using the Paypal link below (selecting the required delivery option). [This collection is published in March 2019. Pre-orders are sent out in the week of publication.]

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THE ESCAPOLOGIST

“These poems, sometimes joyful and sometimes sinister, examine human connection and disconnection. Time traveling between a subjective past and a forgiving present, Jinny Fisher is like the little boy ‘escapologist’ in the title poem: proficient in her craft, and simultaneously tethered and free.”Kathryn Maris

“Jinny Fisher’s poems explore the often fraught intimacies of family life with psychological acuteness and linguistic precision. At times hauntingly stark, at others delightfully whimsical, Fisher’s work is consistently engaged, intelligent, and necessary.”Carrie Etter

“As the title of this pamphlet suggests, Fisher’s poetry dazzles with its play between restraint and release, form and space. These poems resonate with love, loss, mystery and fable and just as you think ‘the ropes will slip free’, a new theme, a different landscape, a fresh voice transmutes into being.”V. Press Guest Editor Mary-Jane Holmes

PRE-ORDER The Escapologist now using the paypal link below. [The Escapologist is published in Feb 2019. Pre-orders are sent out in the week of publication.]

The Escapologist (including P&P)

THESE NIGHTS AT HOME

These nights at home, which follows on from Alex Reed’s earlier V. Press pamphlet A Career in Accompaniment, is very personal, and yet very familiar. This longer pamphlet voices the loneliness and isolation that follow bereavement, and the predicament of trying to begin anew. Moments of tenderness, flashback, longing and love flicker through the mind and heart as the months pass. The poems are accompanied by Keren Banning’s striking series of photographic images that are simultaneously abstract and intimate, drawing the reader further into this fragmented landscape.

“The most striking feature of Alex Reed’s poems in These nights at home is their clarity – a transparency that allows the reader in to the emotions and experience they explore. This lucid quality allows complex and deep feelings to be expressed vividly. Being able to approach the most difficult human experience so directly and honestly makes the poems moving and compelling. Specific concrete details convey loss and grief, loneliness, the pull of memory. Recurring motifs – empty rooms, hallways, doors – suggest the slow and repetitive process of grieving. There is nothing spare in the poems. Every word earns its place. The voice is quiet, restrained, attentive. The poems are not sombre. There are flashes of humour and a range of tone is created through the different poetic forms – prose poems building unsettling extended metaphors, experimental layouts suggesting a shifting sense of memory and perception. The pamphlet shows the reader what it means to be living with loss, conveying the process of grief with its ‘pacing hours’, and just a hint of a tentative way forward. It reminds us how, in the right hands, the economy of poetry can communicate the most complex of emotions.” Cynthia Fuller

“Less fraught than A Career in Accompaniment, more a slow immersive haunting, the poems in These nights at home enter a different unknown – the oceanic space of loss and absence. Tentative minimalism provides the key to open up distances, far and near. Here, less is more – reflective territory exquisitely distilled in Keren Banning’s spectral photographs.” Linda France

A sample poem and a sample image from this longer pamphlet can be found here.

44 pages
ISBN: 978-1-9998444-6-2
R.R.P. £7.50

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LIKE LOVE

“The poems in Like love are uncluttered. They are simple, profound, and immensely touching. There is great empathy at work here, an empathy without which no real poems can exist. Read-Brown deserves a far wider readership than hitherto, and one hopes with this collection she will find it.” Brian Patten

“These approachable poems are full of humour and life experience. Like love faces up to ageing, loss and injustice with an eye for contradiction and detail. Poems about clearing out a child’s bedroom after they have left home, about angels, first love and sunbathing topless exude unquenchable enthusiasm for living! A collection to relish from a seasoned and generous poet.” Chloe Garner, Artistic Director, Ledbury Poetry Festival

“The most prolific slam winner the UK has ever had; a joy of a performer with a huge range of material that varies in style and content.” Steve Larkin
“These poems remind me of the tingles. I’m so happy to feel them. This collection makes me want to run outside, kiss, fall in leaves and then write.” Hollie McNish

“The poems in A Z-hearted Guide to Heartache will make you re-think your relationship with pizza, garlic bread and your mobile phone. These sharp, sad and wry observations – on the reality of living with mental illness and disability, the heartbreak of the everyday, and perseverance despite everything – capture what it is to be twenty-something, in love, and healing through food. This is an exciting debut pamphlet from a new and honest voice.” Jenna Clake

“In her debut pamphlet, Charley Barnes examines the reality of heartbreak and its different forms, highlighting how aspects of modern society can play – often brutally – on our insecurities: the wish to be prettier, more popular, more lovable. These poems deftly explore the bitter, lasting sting of loss and how it shapes us. Yet there is also the tenderness of possibility at play – a sweetness to offset the sharpness encountered by a young woman trying to navigate her way; a knowing, self-deprecating humour that shines through, even in dark experiences. There is a wisdom of the importance of nurturing here, accompanied by the will that, whatever happens, ‘you have to keep going, don’t you?’ ('The lie my mum told me').” Claire Walker

The short fiction in There’s Something Macrocosmic About All of This by Santino Prinzi is very human and very heart-provoking.

“Hilarious,
playful, profound and fierce, these stories ring with wonder at the messy world
of sex and love. Prinzi's fiction is addictive because of their unflinching
sensuality and sharp attention to emotional detail.” Meg Pokrass

“InThere's Something Macrocosmic About All of This, Santino Prinzi looks for the big truths in everyday moments. From coming out to
falling out, each of these stories is a nuanced study of human nature – full of
insight and wit.” Christopher Allen

40
pages, R.R.P.
£6.50

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A sample story from There's Something Macrocosmic About All of This may be enjoyed be here.

THREE MEN ON THE EDGE

Three Men on the Edge is a flash fiction novella by Michael Loveday featuring three men living on the edge of London.

The story of the three men – Gus, Denholm and Martyn – is narrated in three distinctive sections: Denholm – Cause for Alarm; Gus – The Invisible World; Martyn – Chewing Glass.

“A beautifully crafted novella-in-flash, small and perfect slices of
life written with skill and heart.” Kit de Waal

“In his debut novella Michael Loveday sketches with a
delicate brush the colourful lives of three troubled men living on the edge of
London. With poetic language and emotional precision, Loveday writes like a
cartographer about the wilderness we call ‘the human heart’.” Meg Pokrass

“This is a novella full of the aches and bruises left by
loneliness. It's written in fragments, like a bottle smashed during a solitary
boozing session, but it coheres around the vividly captured edgeland that
haunts the three men. This a heart-felt book, but its prose is controlled by a
steely intelligence. It's funny, too – and moving and scary. Michael Loveday is
a name to watch. He's writing a new kind of fiction.” David Swann

Three
Men on the Edge
is very richly shaded and very unconventional.

R.R.P. £9.99

Sample flashes from each of the three sections of the novella may be enjoyed here.BUY a copy of Three Men on the Edge now using the paypal button below.

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AGAINST THE PULL OF TIME

“Against the Pull of Time is a spiritual and physical journey. On the island of Iona Jenna Plewes travels far into herself to come to terms with loss, ageing and mortality. The outer landscape is wonderfully realized. Sea, shore, shells, birds and buildings play a central role in her inner exploration. The immediacy of the pared writing in this sequence, its telling details and the sharing of a deeply-felt experience, draw the reader into Plewes’ journey.”

Myra Schneider

“In tender, beautiful and unsentimental language Jenna Plewes takes us on a journey, walking barefoot on wet sand, sitting in a ruined nunnery, musing on the shoreline 'handcuffed to the sea'. it is a long time since I have read a collection that moved me so. One line somehow says it all: 'so many things are precious in the leaving and the letting go'. This is a collection I want to read over and over – also rare these days.” Roselle Angwin

“This work challenges our abstract and cosy notions of motherhood with
a brutal and vulnerable delve into the psyche. Calcutt grapples, sometimes
violently, sometimes with aching tenderness, each hard-won line ‘like squeezing
/ flesh and fruit from the bone, / this terrible love’. Yet these poems reach
even further, into the rent world, and the remarkable kinds of beauty to which
poetry alone can allude. is an intimate book, the kind that comes in close to
your ear to whisper dark secrets and unavoidable truths. These poems are spare,
careful, insistent--and devastatingly good.” Robert Peake

“Helen Calcutt’s poems are full of surprising and intricate moments -
they unfold like origami, deftly packing and unpacking themselves into new
forms and presenting the reader with confidences, secrets and insight, the
tender words for the things that are hard to say. In their explorations of
motherhood, loss and discovery, Calcutt’s poetry is steeled with precise
language, always finding clarity forged in the heart of experience. These
are intimate poems which are felt in the body, and written with a keen
physicality – ‘love is meant to live on in the body’ writes Calcutt,
‘My flesh making heaven of it.’ In their makings and re-makings, each poem here
reveals this to be a remarkable and potent debut.” Jane Commane

"Stark, poised, precisely observed, James Davey’s
poetry well demonstrates how much more emotion is conveyed the greater the
restraint. The poems also exhibit an impressive musicality, from the lilting to
the percussive. Each poem rewards rereading." Carrie Etter

"These poems by James Davey are vivid, articulate
and entertaining. They evoke the peculiar intensity of childhood fears, the
angst of adolescence, the tremors of first loves. Davey has a gift for
clear-eyed dramatic presentation, as well as an often-humorous take on human
condition and a true empathy for the various characters he comes across, be
they ‘pyroman’ a down-and-out who accumulates trash to burn, the terrified
child taken on a hunting trip, or the lover discovering the ‘colours’ of a
girlfriend. This is a promising and well-wrought debut." Amy Wack

"Davey’s work is confident, crafted, elegant in
its simplicity. The poems are full of moments of recognition for the reader,
subtle emotive power balancing understated humour. I trust him to show me
something worth seeing with no fluff around the substance." Anna Freeman

Set in England and Italy, the poems of How to Parallel Park are very emotive,
very molto a pelle.

How to Parallel Park is James Davey's debut poetry pamphlet. A sample poem can be found here.

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SOMEWHERE BETWEEN ROSE AND BLACK

“There is a disquiet that moves through these
poems. Walker explores what it means to create a sense of home, and
how the people within it build our longings around us. Beautiful work by a
rising star in poetry. These are words that linger after the last page.” Angela Readman

“Claire Walker’s quiet, almost still, narrative
through these poems could reflect their rural setting or the sadness within the
protagonist, yet that quietness is deceptive. There are passions here amid the juxtaposition
of man and stag. These poems will have you checking your fingernails for
soil, seeing antlers in your peripheral vision.”Brett Evans

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BLINK

“Jacqui Rowe’s Blink shares extraordinary visions
of personhood and place, giving voice to the many voiceless figures
in her finely tuned ekphrasis and emotive allegorical poems inspired by
the likes of Apollinaire, Verlaine, and Lorca. Combined with plaintive
elegies for both loved ones and her heartland, this is
syntactically refreshing poetry that serves to move and inspire.” Robert Harper

“Sometimes a poetry collection won’t let you
put it down. This is one such collection. In Blink, Jacqui Rowe has
transcended the mere act of description, lifting the poems from the page with a
lyrical palette knife, painting each scene with an intelligent, witty and
moving style. This is how to write poetry. I will return to these poems again
and again.” Wendy Pratt

RICE & RAIN

The poetry in Romalyn Ante's Rice & Rain is very rich and very distinct.

“Romalyn Ante's poems are exquisitely detailed and a real feast for the senses. She has an instinctive talent for crafting precise and finely-tuned poetry that captures the exact sensations – potent, close to home and as incisive and accurate as a scalpel's first cut. Whether it is the sun's rays that ‘infiltrated your bones, filling them with gold’, or the heart which breaks open like a pomegranate, ‘the seeds, / rusty-red like rivets, / contour a constellation’, life's preciousness is measured here carefully in its proximity to death. These poems are gracefully poised and balanced perfectly, alive with their own irresistible songs of love and longing.” Jane Commane

“Rice & Rain is an impressive first collection of poems that take us from the Philippines to Cannock Chase. The poems are confidently written – Romalyn Ante’s surprising and original imagery shows us how to fatten a boy with the boiled water from rice-rinsing; a handbag mirror made from solidified gin; cornflake sunsets.
“Her poems explore sickness and separation – the longing for the sour-sweet taste of home – but there is also emphasis on nurturing and nourishment. With many references to food from ‘sheen pieces of bullet tuna wrapped in banana leaves’ to ‘luggage stuffed with sun-dried squid’ it is a book you feel you could almost eat.” Jane SeabourneWINNER of Saboteur Awards 2018 Best Poetry Pamphlet category!!!

“Charlie Hill dissects the solitary, dignified struggles of day to day
life with great tenderness – his stories are beautiful and moving, a balance of
cool observation and tenderness. A brilliant collection.” Catherine O'Flynn

“Charlie Hill writes artfully about the gaps between people, of those
caught out by love or hushed by pain, or others seeking order within chaos,
solace in the face of change.” Catherine
McNamara

A sample story from this pamphlet, 'Out of bounds', can be found here.

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The Chemist's House with packing and postage

THE NAGASAKI ELDER

"Antony Owen closely examines the human toll and the
indiscriminate effects of chemical warfare in this new and affecting
collection. Owen’s exploration is both tender and melancholic, and his
imagery of flesh transmuted is as beautiful as it is horrific. This book
sings and weeps of loss; it is a testimony to the survivors and the wounds that
they carry; to the dead and the shadows they leave on the earth.” Helen Ivory

“Antony Owen is the bravest British poet of
his generation. He goes to places poetry doesn't visit and lingering there,
crafts acts of testimony and tribute. He does what art is supposed to; raising
us the highest so that we can see the deepest. The Nagasaki Elder in its
stunning evocation of human suffering is simply his best work yet.” Joe Horgan

“The Nagasaki Elder is a beautiful and harrowing
account of a journey through the bombed cities of Japan. Unlike most poets who hold forth about
atrocities, Antony Owen has been there.
He has spoken in depth to the Hibakusha and transformed their voices
into some extraordinary poems. And we
must listen, if we don't want our world to end as theirs did.” Merryn Williams

TELL MISTAKES I LOVE THEM

“In poems at
once energetic, tense, and original, Stephen Daniels' first pamphlet
compellingly explores everyday experiences. By turns funny and poignant, Tell
Mistakes I Love Them is a refreshing debut.” Carrie Etter

“What Stephen
Daniels does here is to lead us with wit and wisecrack absurdities over to the
other side of the looking-glass and then leave us there staring at our scary
selves, unable to put back together the uneven pieces of our daily eruptions
and catastrophes. This is humanity caught botching it through life, but
Stephen’s choice is to float over the nausea and master the downwards flying
that is our constant falling.” Cristina
Navazo-Eguía Newton

“Stephen
Daniels’ poems deal with the difficulty of growing in an uncomfortable world.
These poems are structured to be as uncomfortable as the stories they reveal,
they are awkward and honest, show the true damage of childhood shame rising
into adulthood – they take unexpected turns: human trauma in a real twisted,
surreal reality. A striking first pamphlet!” Hilda Sheehan

“Stephen Daniels
takes the ordinary, the everyday and makes it strange and sinister – revealing
how ordinary life is, in fact, rooted in strangeness. Daniels takes us on a
journey through childhood and modern family life. But these are not happy or
sentimental poems; they don’t shy away from the more difficult aspects of
domestic life – often exploring ideas of miscommunication, regret and how
families are casually cruel to one another. Daniels is a master recreating the
implied sense of threat that often lurks behind the everyday. The language of
the poems is deceptively light and playful, which make them a joy to read: “we
stole a real imaginary lorry/that smelled of circus” (Grounded), but the real
power of these poems is in the way he uses surreal and sometimes disjointed
language in the spinning of his tales. The effect is not unlike finding
yourself in a dream where everything is slightly off kilter. This wrong-footing
made me want to revisit the poems again and again – and on each reading I
discovered something new and exciting. Daniels is definitely a poet worth
watching.” Julia Webb

Tell Mistakes I
Love Them exposes social nerves and pokes at the wounds with
poems that are very vulnerable and very poignant.

“The poems in Scare Stories offer us exactly that: a series of richly populated narratives that show the contemporary moment as a grotesque and fearful nightmare. This is a world of war and refugees, high politics and helicopters, sex and suffering as entertainment. Somewhere at the root of things is money. It’s all delivered in sharp quatrains whose flamboyant rhyming makes it more brutal, not less. It’s a vision, in the Hieronymus Bosch sense, funny and horrifying, but it’s redeemed at last by our futile wishing for redemption. Scare Stories would have had Gottfried Benn cheering wildly, and if that's not a troubling idea I don't know what is.” Tony Williams

“David Clarke conjures up post-apocalyptic visions that are uncomfortably close to our present. All of humanity is played out here, from gamers to generals, the whole bitingly observed. Scare Stories is a frightening mirror, but it’s also compelling and hypnotic, I dare you to look away.” Claire Trévien

Scare Stories is a sequence of poems that is very unusual and very unsettling.

LONGLISTED for Best Poetry Pamphlet in Saboteur Awards 2017.

David Clarke's sequence-length pamphlet Scare Stories is published by V. Press in March 2017. Clarke's pamphlet, Gaud (Flarestack), won the Michael Marks Award in 2013. His first full collection of poetry, Arc, was published by Nine Arches Press in 2016 and was longlisted for the Polari First Book Prize.

Bolt Down This Earth is Gram Joel Davies' first collection, published by V. Press in March 2017.

Bolt Down This Earth pulses with energy. These poems hang between ambition and loss; they span survival in the home and on hilltops, stretch over break-ups and break-downs. Gram Joel Davies strips back the boards of existence to look at the wires—searching for human voices where the breeze hums though cable or branch. Adolescent ritual turns to a “lightbulb crushed into light.” His imagery is electrifying. Harmony and dissonance cause unexpected meanings to crackle and spark, while scenes and relationships fuse, so that a “power station is an ice cube / across the mica flats / and cider stymies us.”

“Linguistically bold and alive to the thisness of
its moments, Bolt Down This Earth is
a debut collection of lyric energy and inventiveness, full-throated and
confident in its own power to convince. An arrival to be celebrated.” Martin Malone

“Gram Joel Davies’s first collection slips deftly
between a West Country past and the present. The poems are full of taut
observation and meticulous attention to detail. And though there is an urban
feel to many of them, the collection is brimful of nature. The poems are often
peopled with the troubled or misunderstood, and the worlds they move in are
shadowy and uncomfortable versions of those we know – almost dystopian at
times. There is often a sense of the narrator or central character being the
outsider (a boy almost drowning, two teenagers exploring a derelict hospital, a
father too fond of his drink) and there is a disquieting and almost violent
sensuality too. The complexity of the worlds these people move in is echoed by
the complexity of the way Davies puts words together – sometimes joining two
words together to create new words; weaving something rich and new that casts
its melancholy spell over the reader, but never excludes them. In these poems
the uncomfortable tinnitus of the past encroaches on the very real tinnitus of
the present. This is compounded in the powerful Tinnitus sequence that is
dotted throughout the collection − like a central column that
the other poems hang on. The cumulative effect of the layering of numerous and
various language is both troubling and stunning. These are poems whose subtle
inventiveness works its way into your subconsciousness, poems that you will
want to revisit time and again.” Julia
Webb

Fragile Houses is Nina Lewis' first pamphlet, published by V. Press in autumn 2016.

Home is more than
a brick building, family trees or ancestral bones. In Fragile Houses, Nina Lewis explores the people, places and
memories carried through life. Vibrant imagery and precise insight reveal
strength in the most tender places. The pamphlet includes a photographic
sequence from S.A. Leavesley that is directly inspired by the poems’ vivid mix
of fragility and sharpness. Fragile
Houses is very authentic and very fervent.

“In this engaging
debut pamphlet, Nina Lewis deftly examines the human condition through the lens
of family relationships. There is more than memoir here; issues of connection
and disconnection, presence and absence, are gently explored while always acknowledging
‘These years can’t be backtracked or re-spent’ (from ‘Fusion’).” Angela
France

“Nina Lewis’ debut
pamphlet from V. Press explores memory and family. These are exact,
concisely-conceived poems which find their power in restraint and understatement
– ‘In our family, minds go missing’. She writes observantly about memory, and
its trickeries, caught ‘somewhere in the space/ between those two lost letters,
/ as vivid as gold-dust,/ falling to the earth.’ Throughout the pamphlet Lewis
maintains a voice which is sometimes sad, but truthful and grown wise, with
some really memorable images which successfully convey the strong emotions she
deals in – ‘He stayed away. Radio silence. / An opaque circle was drawn around
our house/ filled with white noise.’” Jean Atkin

R.R.P. £6.50

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A sample poem may be found here, along with a sample image from the pamphlet's photographic sequence by S. A. Leavesley.

A Career in Accompaniment is a pamphlet of love, loss and surprising lightness. Based on Alex Reed’s personal experiences, these poems witness what it is like to care for a lover with severe illness and to live with a future where there is no “escape without damage”. Spare and accessible language of the everyday reinforces the emotional power and resonance of “all the falling” but also recalls moments of great tenderness, when “the world lit in her eye”. This poetry of “fragile places” is very intimate yet very universal.

“Reading these poems, you are struck by their striving for truthfulness – as if that might be the key to making sense of a seemingly senseless situation, a life no one could prepare for. And yes, truthfulness seems to work – opening into absolute presence, careful observation of detail and moment-by-moment tenderness and courage. Here you are listening to a generous, unassuming voice, drawing our human vulnerability and capacity for endurance closely together, with space to breathe and gather what threatens to scatter. Restraint and discretion characterise the poems as well as openness – a hard-won but lightly-worn congruence. ‘A Career in Accompaniment’ reminds us what poetry makes possible.” Linda France

The Old Man in the House of BoneisV. Press's first illustrated pamphlet, with poems by David Calcutt and illustrations by Peter Tinkler.Dramatic language and absorbing images blend together seamlessly into this very dark and very surreal account of ageing and loss.

"'Who’s there? Who is it? Who is it?

Who’s there? The house of bone puts its finger to its lips.

Says nothing. It’s keeping its secret to itself.’

David Calcutt’s The Old Man in the House of Bone is an invitation inside a shadowy and mysterious dwelling, one that is also full of curious magic and charismatic strangeness. Questions and secrets abound – does the occupier occupy the house, or does the house occupy its resident? Readers will find themselves irresistibly drawn in, and pondering these enigmas, too. This precise and striking series of poems is both consequential and sequential; each one building on the previous and the following like sediment, creating a brooding and disquieting atmosphere. Calcutt’s poetry is alert and surefooted – written with a humane touch, and always compelling.” Jane Commane

“The Old Man in the House of Bone is a fable, a fairytale, is a humane and tender account of an old man’s mental and physical decline into the final silence. David Calcutt’s imagery grows from the page and fixes itself inside the skull. He is a master magician, a seeker of darkness.” Helen Ivory

R.R.P. £5.50Order now using the paypal link below:

The Old Man in the House of Bone with postage & packing

A sample poem and illustration from the pamphlet can be enjoyed here.BOOK OF BONES

Book of Bones is Kathy Gee's debut poetry collection, published April 2016.“Every contact leaves a trace,” said
Edmund Locard. Book of Bones examines
who we are, our impact and what we leave behind. Rich with
imagery, thoughtfulness and levity, Kathy Gee’s poetry is vibrant with people,
places and lives connecting across time. From skeletons, scandal and hidden narratives to fathers, friendship and photographs, these are poems of
identity, warmth and melancholy.

Book of Bones is very observant, very vivid.

“Kathy Gee's debut is a cabinet of
curiosities, exploring the personal and monumental past. Small artefacts and
once-silenced voices are brought to life. Her observing eye takes in figures
from King Henry to Goering and all points in between, seeking historical
answers to very modern concerns." Jo
Bell

“In this entertaining first
collection Kathy Gee curates a rich display of historical artefacts, landscapes
and personalities that bring the past up close – and personal. The poems,
deftly fashioned and imbued with a feisty tenderness, leave traces of wonder,
joy, compassion and a wry humour all of which linger pleasurably in the mind.” Stephen Boyce

RRP £9.99Buy Book of Bones now:

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Sample poems for Book of Bones, along with audio recordings of Kathy Gee reading, can be found here.HOMETOWN

Hometown is a pamphlet of short fictions by Carrie Etter, published in April 2016, and V. Press's first flash fiction title.

Hometown brims with emotion-charged stories, distinctive characters and situations of hidden and not-so-hidden tensions in everyday lives in the American Midwest. From characters’ differing sense of responsibility to themselves, their friends and their families, to the wide-ranging aftermath of a white man’s accidental killing of a black man in central Illinois, these flash fictions illuminate the daily struggle of being human. Hometown proves very immediate and very engaging from start to finish.

"Etter's stories climb into your head and reboot it from the inside, from the squealingly joyous to the darkly sad, some with gear changes that fling you backwards in your seat, some told in voices so strong you could lean against them, and then some fragile, as if the page held nothing but the faint impression of a delicate and long-dead insect. I can't wait for more."David Gaffney

The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile is Claire Walker's first pamphlet, published by V. Press in October 2015.

Daughter, wife and mother; femme fatale, object of study and maker of myths…The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile explores what being a real woman has been, is, and could be in today’s society of celebrity, stereotypes and media spin. Beneath the poems’ sometimes quiet surfaces, a strong voice, pared word choices, precise images and thought-provoking metaphor make this a powerful pamphlet. The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile is very vivid and very resonant.

"Claire Walker's debut pamphlet The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile is a riveting meditation on motherhood and transformation that crackles with drama. There are moments of lyrical delicacy and oceanic longings, and Walker's perceptual acuity pitches the reader into a world where nothing is taken at face value – a girl might be a crocodile, a mermaid could become captor, and seeds are studied for their mnemonic potential. This is a work to be savoured." Carolyn Jess Cooke"A confident and impressive debut by Claire Walker. The alluring qualities in this collection are the sense of mystique in many of her poems which at first glance appear elucidating. The stylistic fusion of narrative and illustrative poetry see-saws from the adult experience of life to a fabling account of the innocence and fragility of childhood and adolescence. Claire Walker is a writer who clearly cares about her craft and some of the dreamlike qualities of this collection are reminiscent of Joy Davidman’s work." Antony Owen

"These are poems of growth, fertility and flow – rivers, plants, women. Claire Walker skilfully combines nature, myth and the everyday, and when reading her work, it’s difficult to imagine a world where things are ever any other way. The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile is a stunning, quietly powerful debut pamphlet, full of wistful smiles and blissful tears." Kate Garrett

The Girl Who Grew Into a Crocodile was chosen for the Poetry Book Society Spring Bulletin 2016 ‘Other New Pamphlets’.RRP £4.99NOW SOLD OUT
A sample poem from the pamphlet can be read here.

ART BRUT

art brut is David O'Hanlon's first pamphlet, published by V. Press summer 2015.

Set against a background of literary and artistic allusions, art brut is a precise and moving sequence on childhood and teenage institutionalisation. Tackling the nature of trying to reshape memories and carve out something positive, this pamphlet is a concentrated crafting of raw experiences into a poetry that is alive with characters and thought-provoking truths. Stripping back the sometimes over-romanticised notions of institution life, David O’Hanlon creates his own sharp and haunting art that is very real and very gripping.

"The poems in David O’Hanlon’s first collection are ‘epiphanies of sun’ which shine a light on the poet’s experiences of psychiatric illness; to read them is to experience serial insights into a much overlooked and frequently taboo aspect of the human condition. Through poetry which is both lucid and engaging, O’Hanlon manages to transform his intensely personal experiences into something more universal: poems which can resonate with everyone (and not just those who have regular appointments with a psychiatrist). Bright lights cast dark shadows, and there are references to padded cells, catatonic states, self-harm, suicide attempts, OCD, et al, yet the deftness with which they are revealed, and the resilience, honesty and humour of this highly promising young poet’s writing, will leave you feeling uplifted. David O’Hanlon shows us that while the past can have a powerful hold over us, beauty, truth and poetry can emerge from the depths of anguish and despair. An astonishing debut." Fergus McGonigal

"If David O'Hanlon had written this sentence, you'd have shed a tear by now." Jenni Pascoe, JibbaJabba

This pamphlet is a sequence of little poetry fictions that
are simultaneously very serendipitous and very idiosyncratic. Each poem is an
abstraction from the lives of characters conceived by chance and who emerge
through the writing without ever fully
explaining themselves.

Originating from a process of cutting up and randomness, fragments of
writing, sketches, poem drafts and found texts were initially combined to form
documents resembling a kidnapper’s ransom notes. These were then crafted and
shaped. It may be that the same people recur throughout the poems, heard
variously in different voices from diverse points of view, or that they are
several characters, interacting in and populating the same world.

“Ransom Notes
is a beguiling construct of abducted and redeemed words, still trailing the
resonances of unknown former contexts. From them, Jacqui Rowe has teased and
finessed new narratives, characterized by dissonant echoes, tonal shifts,
sudden depths and elliptical insights.”Alasdair Paterson

“Beautifully
crafted poems which reveal themselves slowly with each read. This is a
pioneering work by a poet on top of her game.” Antony OwenA sample poem from the pamphlet can be viewed here.
In a detailed review of Ransom Notes on Sabotage Reviews, Alice Tarbuck comments on how “Rowe enjoys playing with meaning, but is also aware of the potency of the non-meaningful in found poetry” and concludes: “the tantalizing lack of punctuation makes this poetry text flexible, as if what is found there might alter according to the reader’s whim. A fascinating pamphlet.”The full review may be found here.

RRP: £4.99

Ransom Notes with P&P

THE VAGINELLASV.Press's first title –published in June 2013 for The Vaginellas' live performance at Ledbury Poetry Festival in July 2013.

Stark, ballsy and
all-embracing, the poems in The Vaginellas are in turns very funny, very
feminist and very empowering.

The strong distinct voices
of these poets –Catherine Crosswell,
Jenny Hope, Sarah James and Ruth Stacey
– explore the highs and lows of both the male and female body. No intimate
parts escape untouched in this delightful concoction of fun, feminism, sauce
and seriousness.

That this should be V. Press’s first
title, also seems particularly apt, given Tony Harrison’s eponymous poem V.

None of the language in The Vaginellas
is gratuitous, every word serves its purpose – to captivate readers, be it in a
lyrical, erotic, fun way or a reclaiming of historical terms that have been
manhandled for years.

Sample poems from the book can be viewed here: The Vaginellas.RRP: £5 / $8 / €6Copies are now only available via Amazon.